Others Fight To Join Elite In Ford Cup

March 24, 1985|By Jim Sarni, Staff Writer

PALM BEACH GARDENS — The four invited guests are driven up to the front door and escorted in. Chris Evert Lloyd, Hana Mandlikova, Pam Shriver and Carling Bassett get the royal carpet treatment at the Ford Cup.

The fifth player for the $275,000 special event April 5-7 at PGA National will crash the gate. She will fight off 31 other players for the chance to play with the elite and make some of the big bucks.

The battle begins Tuesday in the Ford Challenge Round, a $50,000 tournament which sends its survivor into the April 5 Friday night challenge match against wild card Bassett.

This unique tournament-within-a-tournament has attracted a strong field of Top 50 players who see a pot of gold at the end of the tennis court. The winner of the Challenge Round gets $9,000 for five victories, but she is assured another $10,000 even if she loses the Ford Cup match to Bassett.

The winner also receives an automatic entry into the Tournament of Champions in Orlando next month.

Sabatini could be the player to beat on the clay courts of PGA National. The Ford Cup is the first tournament of the season on clay and the slower surface will demand a transition for many players who have been playing indoors on fast carpets.

Sabatini, who has not played since the Lipton International Players Championships in Delray Beach on hardcourts last February, passed up the recent indoor tournaments.

The top seeds in the Ford Challenge Round should face tough competition from the rest of the field, which includes Carina Karlsson, Katerina Maleeva, Beth Herr, Susan Mascarin and Raffaella Reggi.

Anne Smith is the Challenge Round wild card.

There will also be four qualifiers coming from a 32-player competition which ends Sunday.

All matches in the Challenge Round are scheduled during the day. The Tuesday- Friday sessions are scheduled at 10 a.m. with play on three courts. Saturday`s semifinals and Sunday`s final both begin at 1 p.m.

Admission Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday is free. The quarterfinal matches Friday are $4, the semifinals $5 and the final $6.

The winner of the Challenge Round plays Bassett Friday night, April 5, with the winner of that match advancing to the Ford Cup semifinals against Evert, the top seed, Saturday afternoon, April 6. Mandlikova and Shriver clash in the second semifinal April 6. The final, worth $100,000 to the winner, is scheduled Sunday afternoon, April 7.

Evert is undefeated at PGA National, the home of the Women`s Tennis Association. She won the Citizen Cup, a four-woman special event, in 1982, the Murjani Cup in 1983 and the Virginia Slims of Florida there last year.